The elephant in the room or is it a zoo?

Over the past several weeks I have been working on concepts of purposeful and positive aging and attending related events. On November 13 and 14th the 2010 Purpose Prize meeting was held in Philadelphia at Constitution Hall where dozens of over 60 encore career awardees were introduced and their work celebrated through multimedia and personal conversations. Talking Eyes Media (our friend Julie Winokur) produced wonderful videos of the $100000 award winners. The other highlight was Mary Catherine Bateson talking about her new book Composing a further life: the age of active wisdom. She could not have told a more powerful story to support the value of narrative, wisdom, intergenerational relationships, and the key issues of sustainability. In other words, she described the mission and vision of The Intergenerational School. Speaking of TIS, we celebrated out tenth anniversary with a new logo and the first board meeting of a new intergenerational school on the near west side of Cleveland. The spirit of transforming aging was also evident in Los Angeles as Fielding Graduate University hosted the fourth annual Positive Aging conference with the AARP. Once again I was honored to help organize the Wellness Track and be the second (and amateur) official photographer It was great to be amongst friends, especially Rick Moody, Richard Adler and Connie Goldman. I had been with Rick earlier at the AARP University in Orlando focusing on Brain Fitness. It is all about changing aging.

But there is an elephant room (and there was one literally in Orlando; see photo with the beautiful elephant keeper Gloria Cavanaugh, positive ager par excellence and guru of aging who has a collection of over 100 stuffed elephants at home!) . Despite the fact that we often use the expression that “elephants never forget”, “the elephant in the room” (another pachydermal phrase meaning the unspoken but powerful force) affecting people’s minds about positive aging and brain fitness is Alzheimer’s disease (s).In fact I invented another elephant story. Remember the one about the five blind men and the elephant who each touch the animal in different locations and argue about what an elephant is. One says he thinks an elephant is like a tree (feeling the leg); another, a brush (feeling the tip of the tail); and yet another, a plough (feeling the tusk). The Buddha even has a version of the story; in that version and others the blind men represent experts and scholars. In this blog we too have lamented the lack of vision in our AD leaders.

However the problem is greater than this story represents because the blind men are really in a zoo and some think the elephant is small and furry (feeling a koala bear) or long and cold (feeling a snake). In other words as long as we imagine that Alzheimer’s is one beast not more profoundly a multitude of different conditions, we will not make honest progress in developing a social response.

Some blogs to follow continue on our theme of exposing the myths of multiple Alzheimers (not “‘s”).

Comments

Over the twenty years I have served elders with damaging labels of one mental disorder or another, I have found two general categories of those involved with this work.

One consists of those who sit on the sidelines and toss in comments or suggestions from time to time. This includes family members, doctors, neurologists, and gerontologists who leave the hard work of supporting and interacting with our elders to the direct caregiver. This other group actually interacts regularly with the elders so-labeled, and struggles to do the very hard work of supporting them.

Unfortunately, many of those who have a sophisticated (academic?) knowledge and/or vocabulary DO NOT have significant direct contact with the elders OR their caregivers. Conversely, those who DO have such contact are too often those lacking power or influence in the field.

I have recently been visiting a popular website (at least here in the states) called the “Alzheimer’s Reading Room.” Most of the contributors, including the host, Bob DeMarco, are not eldercare professionals, but rather informal family caregivers seeking to support one another.

It is interesting to me that there seems to be a growing discontent with the so-called “professionals” (everyone from MDs to neurologists, and especially those promoting some kind of pharmaceutical solution to ADRD). In lieu of the failure of our “leaders” to produce significant solutions or even a significant vision for the future, this may not be so hard to understand.

Perhaps there is a groundswell of opposition to ANY authority brewing, much the same as the 12-step movements became the real-world answer to the professional’s lack of effective response to problem addiction?

In any case, you may rest assured that those who are on the FRONT LINES of this ADRD phenomena have excellent eyesight, hindsight, and foresight…as well as a steadily growing scepticism for those who have not been to the “zoo”…